h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The heavy menstrual bleeding mentioned is known as DUB, or "dysfunctional uterine bleeding." As you can probably guess, this is an example of doctors giving something a name in the hope that you might believe they know all about it. They don't. The usual treatments are dilation and curettage (D&C) followed by endometrial ablation, the destruction or cauterisation of the womb lining (usually done electrosurgically, but sometimes ultrasonically which is slightly less horrific apparently). Hysterectomy is normally the final resort - or the first resort if the surgeon is of the "old school" who believe that wombs are there primarily to generate income for gynaecologists.

Being the wife of any kind of surgeon in the United States significantly increases your chances of having a hysterectomy, and significantly increases the chance that the more severe options will be chosen to solve your problem (if you even have one- the boys don't really understand these kinds of body parts, and when they have a hammer, they treat every problem like a nail).

If you find yourself afflicted with marriage to a medical practitioner, and you yourself are not a lizard or a platyhelminth who can regrow body parts, please reconsider any course of action.

It is a blatant and terrible display of the how the medical profession is at the top of the gender/power structure, and its unchecked fraternity of womb-envy.

Not, I think, womb envy - most surgeons consider the womb to be about as useful as the appendix, especially after the menopause, although a friend of mine did meet a wonderful gynaecological surgeon who was able to treat severe fibroids and other problems and still leave my friend able to have a child. Trivia: the man's name is Alan Farthing, and he was engaged to be married to the murdered TV presenter Jill Dando.